


Fatherhood

by chimaeracabra



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Family, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Other, POV Third Person Omniscient, Parenthood, Romance, Spanking, dad bucky, dadbucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:00:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26006095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chimaeracabra/pseuds/chimaeracabra
Summary: Moments of difficulty for James Barnes as the busy father of a temper-prone little girl.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Reader, Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov
Kudos: 22





	Fatherhood

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Secrets Aren't for Keeping](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2799851) by [chimaeracabra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chimaeracabra/pseuds/chimaeracabra). 



> It's been 8,000,000 years since I last wrote anything creative. Took a brief reprieve from writing a pathetic thesis to do something for myself.

On a Thursday evening, Christina is hard to tear away from the latest kid’s show on the Disney channel. Normally, she’s made to do her reading workbooks for one to two hours before dinner, but the five-year-old holds the remote control hostage from her father. Christina Barnes is amazing with numbers, but words, she struggles with. So, it was her mother’s idea for the child to spend time with reading workbooks on a daily basis, so that when she returned to school in the fall, she would have less trouble. Bucky sighs, pushing the hair that has fallen from his bun back across the top of his head. He reminds himself for the umpteenth time to get a haircut. Had it not been for the air conditioning in their home, the loose brunette strands would have stuck to his face. Frustration begins to grip Bucky’s mood as he sighs and stands up from the couch to walk to the corner where Christina has absconded with the remote.

“Come on, peanut,” he says, “Mumma is gonna be done making dinner soon and you haven’t spent any time with your workbooks. I gave you an extra five minutes—”

“No!” Christina shouts, shaking her head before her full pink lips plaster a grim line across her face. Bucky crosses his arms, blocking his daughter’s view of the TV. She whines, moving to the left and to the right to try and see around him. Bucky steps to the side accordingly.

“Christina,” Bucky warns, shaking his head.

“No! Move,” she begs, standing up and starting around his legs. He catches her under her arms and she immediately begins to struggle, whining the entire time. She drops the remote control and as Bucky starts to carry her out of the living room, she knees him in the gut.

“ _Oof_.”

Bucky hadn’t expected the blow, and only momentarily, his grip on her falters. She knees him again.

“Stop it,” he says with clenched eyebrows, pausing in the entrance to the living room. He raises the child slightly overhead so that she’s forced to look down at him. Christina grumbles and kicks Bucky square in his chest. Her socked foot seems to soften the blow just a little bit, but Bucky’s patience has waned.

“What did I tell you about kicking, huh?!”

And just like that, she screeches and kicks Bucky again, harder this time, her little face, normally angelic, twisted into one of rage. He carries Christina back to the couch where he sits abruptly, laying her small body across his splayed knees. His flesh hand lashes her bottom and she gasps before shouting and crying. Frantic footsteps meet Bucky’s ears and Cherise is in the doorway of the living room seconds later, watching Bucky’s hand come down a fourth time over their daughter’s rear.

“James!” Cherise’s voice startles Bucky enough that he stops and looks up at her. The soldier’s wife drops the stainless steal spoon she had been stirring dinner with, the item leaving a small splat of teriyaki sauce on the hardwood floor. The woman rushes towards him with wide eyes and snatches the girl out of his arms. She’s sobbing now, no longer fighting. She clutches her mother.

“She started kicking me—she _knows_ better,” Bucky explains impatiently, the anger in his voice causing Cherise genuine unease. He stands up slowly and Cherise glares at him. He looks away from her with a regretful sigh, deflating a little bit. Christina is weeping into her mom’s shoulder, clutching her.

“Sorry,” she wails, her little voice broken. At a loss for words, Cherise shakes her head at Bucky before turning her back to him and walking out of the living room with their daughter in her arms, telling her she’s okay. He listens to the sound of Cherise walking up the stairs and knows better than to follow. He just can’t take it anymore. Their daughter was never taught to use violence to get her way, but somehow had learned that and wasn’t afraid to use it. He hated to think that she would get suspended from summer camp _again_ for hitting another child. What did it say about what kind of a father he was? He felt he was failing, and it saddened him, but angered him more than anything else. Perhaps irrationally so.

Feeling the need to punch something, Bucky hurries for the front door. His bionic limb whirs as he grabs his keys and makes his way into the garage for his Harley. He could feel his blood pressure rising, and the arm made even more noise. He doesn’t bother to throw his helmet on before pulling out of the driveway and speeding off. He figures that his daughter’s outburst was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He had been awake since 5AM, made his daughter’s lunch and finished her laundry so she could have something to wear because Cherise had been at work so late that she didn’t do either of those things when she got home, he’d gotten Christina ready for summer camp, dropped her off by 7:30AM, and had a client drop a 20-pound weight on his foot by 8AM while doing a personal training session, so he wasn’t exactly in the best of moods. As the wind whips his hair further out of its bun, he starts to realize he’s going too fast, and that he had taken his anger out on his little girl. On top of this, he’s been decompensating from his antidepressants all week, which helped him with his mood. He was trying to keep everything in order at home while Cherise worked hard in the labs with Drs. Banner and Cho, and kept forgetting to refill his prescription.

He slows to a stop a few miles away from home, knowing he’s in trouble now because Cherise had looked at him like she hated his guts. He had never spanked Christina before. It wasn’t really something that Bucky and Cherise had discussed much before having a kid. He remembers Cherise saying she got spanked growing up, but that it was something her parents stopped doing when her little sister came along, so she didn’t really get to enjoy the same level of freedom when it came to emotional expression as a child. That rubbed Cherise the wrong way, like she got the short end of the stick. But she had never specifically told Bucky she didn’t want their child to grow up with spankings as punishment. He sighs, realizing he’d left his phone at the house.

“Shit,” Bucky mutters under his breath, hoping that Cherise doesn’t call him. The sun is setting now, and she has surely made Christina’s plate and is soon to put the girl in the tub. He hopes she remembers that it’s her turn to make Christina’s lunch, and that she doesn’t hate him for what she’d witnessed not too long ago in the living room. Bucky paces a handful of seconds on the pavement before mounting his bike again and riding home. As he stalks across the lawn, he can smell the aroma of Cherise’s cooking, something he’d been too angry to notice when he left. His stomach growls, but the first thing he wants to do is make sure Christina is alright before he does anything. He can hear the tub running up the stairs and the sound of Cherise talking to Christina, asking her what she did at camp earlier that day. Christina sounds tired and a little bit sad, which crushes Bucky’s soul as he quietly steps up the stairs somewhat to hear the voices more clearly.

He decides it’s best to leave the pair alone a while longer and just go get ready for the following day. He makes himself a plate in the kitchen and eats there alone while Cherise puts their daughter to bed. He fixes the dishes in the washer, and stores what’s leftover in Tupperware for the fridge so Cherise doesn’t have to. He hopes this gesture might at least begin to make up for the outburst he’d had earlier. His ears perk up to the sound of Cherise walking down the hall. She pauses in the doorway, finding that Bucky had already put away all of the food. He rinses his hands before grabbing a dish towel to dry them off and start the dishwasher. He leans against the counter, Cherise watching him with crossed arms.

“You shouldn’t have spanked her,” she says, looking unhappy. He frowns, her gaze like a knife to his heart.

“I just…I lost it,” Bucky admits. Cherise sighs and reaches for a glass from the cabinet, making her way to the island where the alcohol sits. Bucky watches her pour herself a glass of wine.

“Babe, I’m sorry. You don’t have to—”

But Cherise pulls the glass away from him when he tries to take it from her, causing some of the wine to splash on her white tank top. She sighs and starts out of the kitchen. Bucky follows her, apologizing as he dogs her heels all the way to the living room. She places her glass on the coffee table before pulling his hands off her waist.

“Don’t hit my baby,” Cherise spits, turning around and pointing her finger at him angrily. Bucky deflates again.

“I didn’t spank her really hard. I didn’t hurt her, Cherry.”

“Well, you did it enough to cause her distress. She wouldn’t stop crying for almost an hour, James.” Cherise plops on the couch and downs half of her glass. Bucky settles on his knees in front of Cherise, wrapping his arms around her legs.

“I _didn’t_ mean to,” he promises, placing his lips on Cherise’s bare knee. She shifts on the couch momentarily before settling, allowing her husband to grovel.

“I’m sorry,” he says repeatedly, quietly, kissing Cherise’s knee. When he looks up at her, she just looks sad now.

“I mean, what’s spanking going to teach her, James? That hitting is okay. I know she can be a handful, and I don’t want her kicking anyone when she’s angry, but you didn’t _think_ about that.”

“I know. I know and I’m _sorry_. I—I lost my patience with her. You’ve lost it with her, too, Cherry, yellin’ at her—”

“Yeah, but I never raised a _hand_ to her. I don’t want my daughter experiencing corporal punishment, James,” Cherise states, sitting up straight and looking down into his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he pleads again.

“You can apologize to Christina tomorrow.”

Bucky sighs, resting his head in Cherise’s lap, massaging her calves. Cherise sighs, finally placing a hand on his back.

“She doesn’t want you to take her to camp in the morning. She asked me,” Cherise explains, pausing to take another sip of her wine. Bucky looks up at her with shame.

“And now I have to rearrange my schedule.”

“Baby, I didn’t mean it.”

Cherise sighs, her expression hardening once more. She’s still angry with him and he knows it. He wasn’t going to just kiss his way out of this.

“I’ll apologize to her. I won’t spank her again,” he promises.

“I…this is my fault. I _knew_ we should have started her at a different camp. She complained about that stupid little girl making fun of her…”

Bucky rubs Cherise’s side comfortingly.

“Neither of us listened to our baby girl very well, did we? I could see her getting more and more agitated every week, but I didn’t think she’d really start acting out like this,” Bucky explains. Bucky pulls Cherise closer so she’s sitting on the edge of the couch. This sudden motion had caused her to gasp. He clutches her, gazing deeply up into her eyes.

“I didn’t hurt her, Cherry. I would _never_ hurt our daughter. You know that, don’t you?” he asks. Cherise knew a spanking technically hurt, but Bucky didn’t hit the girl hard enough to leave bruises. Just enough for her to feel the sting of punishment. But she recalls having cried after spankings growing up, and it doesn’t ease her conscience very much.

“Cherise, tell me you believe that I wouldn’t hurt our child…”

She can never stay angry with her husband for very long. She clutches his handsome face with one hand.

“I know…I just don’t want us spanking our daughter.”

“I understand that, Cherry. I’m sorry.”

He kisses her just below her breasts, between her ribs, and her stomach swells with butterflies. No, she couldn’t stay angry with Bucky. She worries that their daughter will be a different story.

Uncle Steve and auntie Nat were picking Christina up from camp on Friday, because their son was at the same camp in the section with the older kids, and Cherise had meetings in the afternoon that she couldn’t miss. It was only an hour before Bucky was ready to wrap up his last session for the day when he got out of the shower at the gym to find that Steve had texted him not to worry about picking Christina up. When he finally got home, Cherise answered the door. She’d heard his car roll up and thought it was Steve or Natasha. Her smile fades a little when she sees Bucky fishing for his keys in his duffel bag, and he knows she’s still upset with him.

He doesn’t get the chance to kiss her before she turns around and hurries to the kitchen, claiming that something is on the stove. When he places his gym bag by the door, he notices a small white paper bag from the pharmacy sitting on the little table where he and Cherise always leave their keys. He knew it was his prescription before even opening it. He knew that Cherise had put it there so he wouldn’t forget to take his meds. He tears open the bag and bottle, retrieves his water bottle from his gym bag, and downs a pill before securing the front door and walking down the hall to find his wife. If he needed to grovel some more for Cherise to forgive him, he was ready to grovel.

Before he reaches the kitchen, the sound of a car pulling into their driveway causes him to turn around again. He hastily unlocks the door and steps outside to find Steve smiling as he steps out of the driver’s seat, waving. Natasha is reaching into the back seat to hand something to Christina, who looks very happy now, her older cousin busy on his little video game in the seat beside her. Steve waves and the men exchange a few words while Natasha helps Christina out of the car. The girl pauses when she catches sight of her father, ducking slightly behind Natasha and clutching the hem of her shorts. Confused, the redhead giggles. The dog comes rushing out of the house behind Bucky, along with Cherise. Christina hugs the animal as he makes his way around Natasha to greet her. Steve and Cherise start to catch up briefly, Christina remaining behind her aunt and the dog, avoiding Bucky’s gaze. The redhead glances from Bucky to the girl a handful of times.

She tugs at Steve’s collar, clearing her throat.

“No—auntie Nat—don’t leave yet,” Christina begs, grabbing at Natasha’s shirt.

“Oh, honey, uncle Steve and I have to go. It’s getting late.” Natasha places her hand atop Christina’s head a moment before stooping to her height. Christina crosses her arms.

“Don’t worry, girlie. We’ll hang out again soon. I promise,” Natasha adds before kissing her on the cheek. Christina clutches Natasha.

“Baby girl, it’s getting close to bed time—” Christina cuts Bucky off by running past him towards the house before he can finish his sentence.

“Listen, thanks guys. It’s been a tough week,” Cherise explains. Embarrassed, Bucky just knows it’s apparent that their daughter is upset with him. He stands there dumbly as Steve slaps his shoulder and reminds him they’re going to the bar with Sam over the weekend as Natasha starts into the passenger’s side. He waves as the couple drives off and Cherise starts for the house after the dog and their daughter. Bucky follows, knowing it’s time for him and Christina to have a talk. She had run to her room before he or Cherise had the chance to catch up with her. They find her hiding on the other side of her bed, looking into her kaleidoscope. She frowns up at Bucky as he appears around her bed. Cherise stood in the doorway, out of sight.

“Mumma!” Christina calls.

“She’s right there, baby,” Bucky reassures her. The girl stands up but Bucky catches her when she tries to run around him. She sniffles, pulling out of his grasp. Bucky kneels at her height.

“I’m sorry I spanked you, Christina,” Bucky starts, rubbing her shoulders. She glares at him and sits on the floor, pulling away again, backing into the corner between her bed and the wall. Bucky sighs, inching a little bit closer. She keeps her little arms crossed, looking away from him.

“I am _very sorry_ , peanut,” he adds, holding a hand over his heart. It breaks when a few tears escape Christina’s eyes.

“Why you hit me, daddy?” she asks.

“I was wrong. It was _very bad_ of me to do that. I should never have done that. I never meant to hurt you, peanut,” he says gently, “I just didn’t want you to kick me. We talked about hitting and kicking…remember? It’s not something you ever do just because you’re feeling angry.”

Christina sighs and looks at him, Cherise sitting at the foot of their daughter’s bed now. Christina steals a glance at her mother.

“You scared me,” Christina admits, wiping her eyes. Bucky crumbles. He couldn’t stomach the idea of his little girl fearing him. It was the last thing he ever wanted. He reaches for Christina carefully, pushing a hand through her soft, thick hair. It’s getting long like his.

“Daddy’s sorry, baby. Can you forgive me?”

When she doesn’t pull away, Bucky picks her up into his lap, sitting Indian style and holding her. He apologizes repeatedly to her. She whimpers into his chest, the heat of her breath dampening his shirt.

“I won’t do that again. I was angry. And that’s not an excuse. Daddy would never, ever hurt you, peanut.” To Bucky’s relief, she squeezes him, and suddenly his heart reassembles itself.

“We don’t hit in this house. I was bad for hitting you when I always tell you not to hit. Let’s promise we won’t hit each other anymore. Can we do that, peanut?”

Christina looks up at him, and then at her mom. Cherise nods.

“Okay, daddy. I’ll try. I just didn’t wanna do reading.”

Bucky kisses Christina’s forehead lingeringly.

“You still have to do reading every day. Mommy and I want you to learn better so you’re ready for school in the fall.”

Christina grumbles before sighing and resting her forehead in what looks like defeat against Bucky’s chest.

“It’ll be okay, peanut.”

She bites her finger anxiously, dreading the workbooks.

“I _hate_ reading. It’s hard,” Christina explains, sniffling again.

“We don’t have to do it today, okay?”

“Okay, daddy.”

“I love you, peanut. Do you still love me?”

Christina nods, her face squished against Bucky’s shoulder. Cherise looks happier now as he glances at her in his peripheral vision. With all forgiven, he knows it will be a relaxing weekend from the stress they all shared that week.


End file.
